The Shards (Signed Edition) Book

RELEASE DATE - 17 JANUARY 2023

A sensational new novel from the bestselling author of Less Than Zero and American Psycho with a signed bookplate inserted.

It tracks a group of privileged Los Angeles high school friends as a serial killer strikes across the city. His first novel in 13 years, The Shards is Bret Easton Ellis at his inimitable best.

The Shards is a book about obsession and lots of gay sex—but it’s also a coming of age story, sort of, with powerful messaging.

LA, 1981. Buckley College in heat. 17-year-old Bret is a senior at the exclusive Buckley prep school when a new student arrives with a mysterious past. Robert Mallory is bright, handsome, charismatic, and shielding a secret from Bret and his friends, even as he becomes a part of their tightly knit circle. Bret’s obsession with Mallory is equalled only by his increasingly unsettling preoccupation with The Trawler, a serial killer on the loose who seems to be drawing ever closer to Bret and his friends, taunting them with grotesque threats and horrific, sharply local acts of violence.

Can he trust his friends – or his own mind – to make sense of the danger they appear to be in? Thwarted by the world and by his own innate desires, buffeted by unhealthy fixations, Bret spirals into paranoia and isolation as the relationship between The Trawler and Robert Mallory hurtles inexorably toward a collision.

Gripping, sly, suspenseful, deeply haunting and often darkly funny, The Shards is a mesmerising fusing of fact and fiction that brilliantly explores the emotional fabric of Bret’s life at 17 – sex and jealousy, obsession and murderous rage.

'Compulsively readable novel informed by suspense that is, at times, breathtaking. The setting is beautifully realised not only by its evocation of place, but also by its myriad references to popular music of the day. Sometimes horrifying, sometimes nostalgic and even poignant, Ellis' latest is an unqualified success'
Booklist

'A brooding noir thriller blending fact and fiction ... an event publication from a cult author'
The Bookseller, Editor's Choice

'A thrilling fusion of classic crime noir, pop culture porn and new wave gloss,The Shards is the pinnacle of Bret Easton Ellis’ creative career and everything we have come to hope, expect and fear from him'
Benjamin Myers

‘There’s inevitable excitement surrounding a new Bret Easton Ellis. The Shards is a riotous tale of privilege and psychosis at a swanky prep school’
Guardian

‘One of the biggest literary events of 2023 ... The author of American Psycho returns in characteristic, high-octane, disturbing style, weaving a heavily fictionalised retelling if his own days at prep school in 1981. Character driven, yet typical of the cult writer's twisted imagination, the novel focuses on a hero who must navigate his own desires and paranoias as a serial killer lingers around campus. Welcome back, Mr Easton Ellis’
Harper’s Bazaar

‘A tale of sexed-up, drug-guzzling privileged high school students in the early 1980s …Glossy and grotesque’
The Times